The Houdini Team has demonstrated their cool tool called Lightning Generator, which is a part of the free and open-source toolset in Houdini called SideFX Labs. As you may have guessed from the tool's name, Lightning Generator creates electric arcs around various objects. According to the tool's description, each arc contains a random grayscale value in its vertex colors. Used in conjunction with a timer, the arcs change from being visible and invisible at any given time. This method provides a very cheap way of animating the arcs from connecting between start and end points.
